Commonwealth of Man

A simulator for interacting with and experiencing life within the Commonwealth of Man. The Commonwealth of man is a lost human colony that established its own empire. A Feudal space empire with nobility, commoners and a powerful fleet. The Commonwealth has been fighting aliens for five centuries and cut off from earth for six hundred years. The simulator setting is space opera set in the year 2750 AD.

The Commonwealth of man is a lost colony of humanity that became an empire. It has been six centuries since the Odyssey ended up on the far side of the galaxy. Six centuries since Caledonia was founded. And five centuries of endless war. From the Soltouched throne the emperor of mankind rules a commonwealth assailed from all sides by alien threats. The nobility, heroes and guiding hands of the Commonwealth, fight and die to keep the flame of humanity burning just a little longer.

Geography: The Commonwealth is a cluster of 91 settled worlds, 142 claimed stars and 200 billion people. It's centered on the political world of Caledonia. It's located in thePerseus arm of the galaxy.

Politics: The Commonwealth is a feudal space empire. Noble houses are bestowed authority over planets, the right to build spacestations and mining colonies. Noble houses raise troops and build warships that are called up to defend the realm. Noble houses administer their domains and see to their production, safety and development. Houses are sworn to their superiors and to the soltouched throne. Count level houses preside over mining outposts and spacestations. Baron level houses preside over settled worlds. Dukes preside over a settled world and have authority over an entire starsystem. All Commonwealth warships belong to both the Commonwealth fleet and to the house that built them, the noble house chooses who captains them. The current emperor is Zelevas Kendricks, the first emperor was Marcus Kendricks, second officer of the colony ship Odyssey which founded Caledonia.

Aesthetics: The Commonwealth is a grand narrative, the aesthetic leans towards drama, ornateness. Murals, vaulted ceilings, statuary. At times it becomes Baroque in its extravagance. Commonwealth nobility wear capes and carry swords they are expected to use. Heraldic decorations are common. Commonwealth ships are covered in house heraldry, decorations and have the commonwealth emblem displayed prominently in gold. Commonwealth wormhole capable warships are commanded from a throne room not a command center or bridge. The Commonwealth is in some sense a nation held together by a shared narrative of human struggle, sacrifice and heroism with the nobility playing default protagonist role.

The Commonwealth symbol is an eagle clutching a sun in its talons.

Psychology: The Commonwealth holds to a xenophobic and fundamentally adversarial perspective on the galaxy. A violent first contact and subsequent warfare led to the struggle for supremacy doctrine. Only one species can inherit the galaxy, self determination and survival are not rights the galaxy owes you. You struggle and sacrifice for your place in the galaxy or you're enslaved or rendered extinct by someone else. Despite that the Commonwealth perseveres, believing total victory is possible because the alternative is to resign themselves to extinction or subjugation.

The Nobility: They can be divided into three broad groups and have exclusive rights to specific colour capes. Scarlet, the imperial house of Kendricks. Blue, birth nobility. Born into a house of the commonwealth nobility 'descendants of heroes aspiring to heroism' as the creed goes. Black, raised up commoners who have become nobility for an act of heroism. This actually makes them desirable romantic partners and they are frequently courted for integration into noble houses. 'taking the black' or 'take the black' is the phrase for when a commoner is elevated for their accomplishment. Typical noble houses have anywhere between a dozen and nearly 90 members including various branches of the family tree. Inheriting the head of house title does not strictly have to be a direct descendant of the current holder of the title. A member of the noble house is addressed as lord or lady. only the head of house is addressed by the house's authority title as count, baron or duke. Nobles can be prideful and honour duels are possible though many social off ramps and warnings are provided before then.

Technology: The commonwealth warfighting technology consists of tech plundered from fallen foes and anything that'll give them an advantage. Personal scale weapons are a mix of laser, ballistic and missile weapons. ship weaponry consists of beam lances, kinetics, nuclear missiles. Ship defences consist of armor, point defence and shields.

The Commonwealth relies on a specific form of technology for FTL. Wormhole generators. These create linked portals up to 11 lightyears apart, the egress now mostly placed accurately. The crucial mechanical features of wormhole generators is the ships that go through don't need to be the one who generated the wormhole, or have wormhole generators themselves. The typical ratio is a ship's wormhole can allow three times the ship's mass through before destabilizing. 'breach' wormhole generators like those on stations, breach ships and battlecruisers have significantly higher ratios. The other mechanical feature of wormhole generators is cooldown, after use the generator takes 14+ hours to cool down before it can be used again due to the immense amount of heat that expanding and stabilizing a wormhole creates.

Psychic powers: Commonwealth nobility are increasingly receiving 'neuroformer' treatment at the age of 16 which provides psychic abilities. This is based on reverse engineered illuminate technology though commonwealth psychic abilities are still vastly inferior to those wielded by the illuminate. neuroformers cant be used after age of 16.

The Commonwealth fleet: The Commonwealth fleet is loosely divided into four categories of vessels.

Escort/monitors: these are any warship that doesn't have a wormhole generator itself, the only ships commoners are permitted to captain. Typically any commonwealth frigate or cruiser would have an attendant group of escorts taking advantage of its surplus wormhole stability budget to tag along. Escorts however can be quite capable not needing to carry wormhole generators frees up capacity for other capabilities. Escorts and monitors have no standard naming convention.

Frigates: 250 to 400 meters long. Frigates are the smallest wormhole capable ships, typically captained by the nobility. Count and Baron level noble houses typically produce the frigates of the Commonwealth.

Cruisers: 700 to 1200 meters long cruisers are fielded by ducal houses and are the backbone of the commonwealth fleet despite being a significant minority. Each cruiser will have multiple nobles aboard and be captained by a member of the ducal house. Cruisers and frigates typically have names as if from the 17-19th century british empire. So Glorious, Dauntless, Monarch, Gladiator, Invincible, etc.

Battlecruisers: 2000 meters long, the imperial house exclusively fields battlecruisers and a convention limits the battlecruiser count to no more than six. They act as fleet flagships and imperial authority on campaign and carry high ratio breach wormhole generators allowing entire fleets to travel with them on a jump. Battlecruisers are named for mythological heroes.

Non combat ships:

The commonwealth has a thriving merchant marine whose flags owe either to various noble houses or to the merchant orders that have received letters of free trade from the imperial throne. While commoners cannot command ships with wormhole generators it is often possible for frontier traders to request warships to open a wormhole for them and more core holdings of the commonwealth have wormhole stations to allow for prosperous internal trade lanes.

Breach ships are specialist fleet support craft built around enormous wormhole generators with high mass ratios that allow them to open wormholes for entire fleets to transit at once.

the soltouched throne: The soltouched throne is the seat of the emperor in the palace on caledonia, capital of the empire. The soltouched throne is made from a part of the stern of the odyssey that was last touched by the light of earth's sun. as such it is close to a religious object in the commonwealth.

Alien threats:

Remnants of the gorg empire: The first foes of the commonwealth, gorg are toadlike aliens who weigh some 600 pounds, not taller than humans but physically very strong and imposing. They stole the commonwealth's wormhole drive during first contact and declared war, prior to this the gorg empire had lasted four thousand years using slower than light transports and lightspeed radio messages their empire maintained by theocratic inertia(the god king was considered ritually and on paper the same voice even if the one who sent the message and the one who received the message weren't the same king due to decades having past). The god king of their empire has been killed and the heart of their empire seized but some gorg forces still fight on.

The Ixil: migratory insectoid hive mind. All ixil within a lightsecond know what any other ixil in that range knows. Ixil fleets arrive travelling at near light speed then drop to conventional speed and propulsion at the edge of a star system. Once they arrive everything in the system is considered resources to harvest. no attempt to communicate with the ixil has ever been successful. Ixil migratory fleets have been arriving for a number of centuries.

The Illuminate: psychic squid faced humanoids. Illuminate are old and few in number, protected by armoured and armed encounter suits from the world. While capable of psychic attack there are less than 200 illuminate, they wage war on humanity for their own inscrutable purposes and are backed up by an immense self replicating drone army. The Illuminate travel FTL through use of a teleport beacon network.

Minor alien threats: the galaxy is a ceaseless menacing darkness that seeks to destroy. Other aliens can come out of the darkness at any time to harm, subjugate, subvert or destroy.